Oregon History Comics is a compilation of comics made by ten Portland based illustrators. They tell stories about Portland itself, so that their fellow Portlanders could learn more about their city's rich multicultural history.

Poorcraft is a guide to simpler living, in comic book form. The creator IronSpike wanted to dispel the notion that getting into comics means becoming a starving artist. Hence, his book explains how to do handle essentials like housing, transportation, food, entertainment etc. on a smaller budget.

Jamie Tanner's initiative was the most audacious since she didn't even now what she was going to make yet! Getting by on her reputation from her previous work, the Eisner Award winning The Aviary, she asked people to give her the money so that she would have a reason to get to work on her next project.

So how does Kickstarter work anyway? The general idea is a creator with an idea makes a project pitch on the Kickstarter site, people pledge money, and if they get sufficient funds on time, the project gets made.

How is the money handled? The people who make pledges register their credit cards on Amazon's payment system. Their cards don't get charged until they get complete funding, and a pledger can cancel anytime before that.

What do the pledgers/funders get? Each creator is free to provide whatever incentives they want. This could be pdfs and/or hard copies of the comic, original art, extra copies, signed copies, book acknowledgements, etc.

How do we know that the projects pitched are real? First off, Kickstarter reviews each project for veracity. There are pitch videos so that people can make sure that they come from real people. Furthermore, the person who pitches is obligated to update the pledgers on the site.

However, Kickstarter is more than a mere placeholder for pledge requests. It's a full social network, where the creators and their fans/pledgers can interact with each other. More than the money, the creators enjoy getting the support and just feeling the love from their fans.

edgArt.Supplies

Save Loomis!

Andrew Loomis was an illustrator from the turn of the century who is now famous for making some of the most informative, easy to understand books on illustration.

These books will give beginner artists a solid foundation in the craft of illustration, especially the human figure. These books are cited by Alex Ross and Steve Rude as helping them learn the fundamentals of drawing.